Deli
Strummer Addresses Her Critics'
Allegations And Doubts About Her Holocaust
Record.

Deli
Survived, But Will Her Story?

Excerpts:
For 11 years, John Holzworth taught
the junior class at Fallston High School
about the Holocaust as part of his
American history course's section on World
War II. To help students appreciate the
Holocaust's impact, Mr. Holzworth brought
in several survivors to the Harford County
school through the Baltimore Jewish
Council's 12-year-old speakers bureau. One
of those speakers was Deli
Strummer, a Vienna-born survivor and
Towson resident who claimed she was in
five concentration camps from 1941 to
1945. But five years ago, after hearing
her speak twice at the school and at a
Towson church, and interviewing her before
a school panel discussion, Mr. Holzworth
requested that the BJC not send Ms.
Strummer any more.

A
Series Of Inaccuracies Led To The
Baltimore Jewish Council's Break With
Deli Strummer.

Rona S. HirschStaff Reporter

Six months ago, the Baltimore Jewish
Council requested that Towson resident
Deli Strummer no longer lecture on behalf
of its Holocaust bureau and removed her
from its list of recommended speakers. The
decision was reached after two Holocaust
experts interviewed the Ms. Strummer, 78,
and presented their findings about a
series of inaccuracies in her
testimony.

Alan H. FeilerManaging Editor

Excerpts:
Over the past two decades, Deli Strummer
has acquired a reputation as one of the
preeminent public speakers in local
Holocaust survivor circles. A presentation
by the grandmotherly Ms. Strummer
characteristically brims with unabashed
patriotic fervor, poignant recollections
about life in Vienna prior to World War
II, graphic accounts of her experiences in
the concentration camps, and hopes for a
world to come full of peace and tolerance.
[...]

Some of the inaccuracies discovered by
Dr. Langer and Dr. Hilberg,
as reported by the BJC include:

Ms. Strummer had claimed she was
interned in concentration camps for
four-and-a-half years from 1941-1945
including Theresienstadt, Auschwitz
and Mauthausen. The experts said she
was actually interned a little more
than one year and 10 months.

She had claimed she arrived in
Theresienstadt in 1941, but she
actually arrived June 26, 1943.

Ms. Strummer said in the past she
spent nine months in Auschwitz. After
the experts concluded that she actually
was there eight days at most, she now
states that she was interned there
about three weeks.

Ms. Strummer claims she escaped
death in the gas chamber five
times.

She said water came out of the
nozzles instead of gas. The experts
counter that it would have been
technologically impossible for gas and
water to come out of the same
nozzle.

Ms. Strummer said she was sent to
the gas chamber at Mauthausen on May 5,
1945, but the doors flung open and
inmates ran out for breath, freed by
U.S. soldiers who liberated the
Austrian camp. But records show that
the last gassing there was April
28.

Ms. Strummer claimed her father was
a general in the Austrian army. But
experts said it was impossible for such
a young man to hold such a high
rank.

Ms. Strummer said she witnessed
Auschwitz guards lining up children and
shooting them for target practice. Dr.
Langer called it "unlikely."

Ms. Strummer claims she saw human
bones on the floor of a shower. Dr.
Hilberg said the claim was
"invented".